Sleepless Nights

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  • What do you think you’re doing?!

    Isaac has decided that solids aren’t for him right now. I went to give him some stewed apple, only to have him look at me like ‘What do you think you’re doing WOMAN? I want BOOBS!’

    He was content to wave the spoon around and poke himself in the eyes, but actually eating got me the ‘Bleuch, are you trying to KILL ME?!’ look before he gagged and spat everything out. All over my front.

    So yeah, that’s that. We’ve stopped for a bit and I’m not stressed. Boobs are easy and simple and don’t require warming up. Although, it is Winter and it’s been a little chilly. Iced milk never hurt anybody.

    All this feeding has my boobs loking like socks with oranges in them. Deflated oranges. I put a bra on this morning, only to realise 5 minutes later that part of my breast was tucked out of the band at the bottom. Really, is it normal to not realise things like that immediately?

    Sleep has been in short supply too. Isaac is cluster feeding aaaaallllll night and Amy is having nightmares and waking screaming. I feel just a little bit wrecked. I’m also pretty sure that there is baby vomit somewhere in the vicinity of my left shoulder and I can feel a wet patch where he chewed on my side as I was cuddling him. I’m not even game to think about what he’s rubbed through my hair.

    Also? I need to stop swearing. Amy swears like a trooper. In context. I’ll let you know how that goes.

    Amy: [playing with the laundry baskets. drops basket on her foot] ‘Fucking hell! Fucking basket’

    Me: [dies inside. doesn’t smile. ignores it and hopes like hell it just goes away]

    Amy: [cat steals part of her sandwich] ‘Fucking CAT!’

    Amy: [looking at the dog] ‘Fucking DOG! Mummy! Dog PISSED”

    Yes. I might be the worst mother ever. Sigh.

  • And then, I choked on a hair…

    Let’s talk about post partum hair loss.

    At around 3 months post partum, my hair started to fall out. Very normal, it happened the same way with Amy. What I didn’t count on this time was ending up with two (2!) slightly bald patches near my temples. Luckily the rest of my hair covers them, but I can’t help but wonder what will happen if my hair continues to fall out.

    So far, I’ve managed to create a lost hair mural on the shower wall – all in one shower, I’ve found hair in Isaac’s nappy (the jury is still out on whether he swallowed it, or whether it fell in there during a nappy change), there is hair tangled around my keyboard keys and gasp, I choked on one of my own hairs last time I was doing dirty things with Nathan. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t normally expect to choke on your own hair, do you?

    All I’m saying really, is post partum hair loss is a lot more annoying than the pregnancy books would have you believe. Nobody wants to bite into a fresh baked biscuit to find one of their hairs tangled around their tonsils.

    For now though, I’m going to stop running my hands through my hair and paying attention to how much is coming out. It’ll stop eventually, all by itself and me stressing about it is not going to help the matter. Although, maybe if I hope really hard, the hair on my head will stay put and all my other hair will fall out. I’d really like to not have to shave anything again anytime soon.

    In other news, Isaac was 19 weeks old this Sunday just gone. NINETEEN WEEKS. Where on earth does the time go? He rolls over both ways now and when he’s on his stomach he tries to scoot forwards with his feet. I’m so not ready to have two mobile children in this house. Sure it’s childproof for Amy, but a crawling baby? With a toddler about? And all the toddler crap that gets littered everywhere?

    ‘Scuse me, I’ll just be in the corner rocking.

    Isaac - 19 weeks

    Also, Tanya had her baby on Sunday! Congratulations!

  • Curious

    So I’m curious, does anyone else feel like living with a toddler is like living with a tiny little person suffering from Bi-Polar?

    Cos really, I don’t have a yardstick to measure how normal this is over here.

    Does anyone else’s toddler go from laughing maniacally to screaming uncontrollably? Within 2 seconds? Over NOTHING?

    Anyone else have a toddler who will hurt themselves in order to have a proper tantrum? Amy bites herself in order to then get ‘kisses better’. She only does it when she’s been naughty and gotten growled at though. She will also punch the floor, hit herself etc. I’m just wondering how normal that is? I know it’s attention seeking behaviour.

    Please?

    Really, she is not an easy child to parent. I feel like I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth here, just dragging myself through the day, trying to make it to bedtime without too many tears, injuries, accidents, or tantrums.

    I know damn well she gets so tired and needs to nap, but she will not nap. At all. Ever. So please, don’t suggest a nap. I know it would help, I know it would work, but it isn’t happening.

    I’m just, really tired.

    Amy

    Isaac Sleeping.

  • Suffocating

    Some days, I feel like I’m suffocating under the needs of these children of mine. There is always someone who needs feeding, dressing, or changing.

    Add breastfeeding into that mix and I’m getting a little ‘touched out’.

    I love breastfeeding. The way Isaac’s head nestles into my breast, the huge smile when I get my boobs out in order to feed him, the way he snuffles and gulps until he’s satisfied. But in this, the last few weeks before Isaac will be getting a meal consisting of all solids, where milk will become only part of his diet (and don’t get me wrong, I’m not intending to wean, I fed Amy until she was 19 months), this last little bit? It’s hard.

    It’s really fucking hard.

    I love them and I love this. I love it, truly I do.

    But sometimes, you’ve got to be okay with admitting that you don’t always like the dirty bits of motherhood. The 3am vomiting. The toddler poo that has ended up at the small of her back when she really should be crapping on the toilet. The tears and the snot and the anguish of being asked to pick up your toys, leave the cat alone, don’t sit on your brother, Amy look where you are going, are you listening to me? Well are you?

    The bits I love, far outweigh the bits I don’t like. That doesn’t however, make the horrible bits any easier to like.

    ***

    Amy is still ‘STILL HUNGRY!!!’ (with capitals and exclaimation marks, because that is how you talk when you are TWO!) but we’ve implemented a plan of chopped vegies and fruit in the fridge in iced water (thankyou DrMim) and all snacks will be grabbed from there. Other things I think are acceptable are cheese and crackers. If she won’t eat them, she’s not truly hungry and can wait for mealtimes.

    ***

    Potty training. Ugh. I don’t even want to talk about that yet. Let’s just say that nothing has worked and move along. Nothing to see here…

    ***

    My good wrist is clicky today. Fuck. My bad wrist? Well we just won’t talk about that either. Or any of my other joints.

    ***

    I applied for a blogging job a few days ago. I haven’t heard anything yet, but to be honest, the extra money would be really handy. Not to mention, it’s blogging on a topic I am really passionate about. (No, it’s not parenting. Blogging jobs for parenting blogs are as rare as hens teeth!) In the interim, well, in the interim, we’ll just putter along doing what we’re doing. We can afford to eat and pay bills and really, that’s all we need.

    ***

    I have come to accept that toddlers don’t listen and babies never do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. I don’t like it, but I accept it.

    ***

    These biscuits. Awesome. The dough is so good I wasn’t sure any was going to make it to the oven. SO GOOD.

    chocolate wafer biscuits

  • Food Issues

    I started Isaac on solids today. A week ago I would have sworn black and blue he wasn’t ready. Today?  I was breaking out the rice cereal and celebrating.

    Okay, maybe I wasn’t celebrating, but still.

    He has been fussy for the last few days. Wanting to feed every hour, but getting bored after a few minutes and pulling at my nipple (Isaac says: ‘My Mummy is a stretchy chew toy!’). Then he’d fuss 10 minutes later because he was still hungry. Sigh. So today, I made up a tablespoon of rice cereal and gave it to him after a feed. He didn’t seem to hate it with a fiery passion (like Amy did) and after swirling it around in his mouth for a bit, swallowed it down. And again. And again. He ended up eating the entire amount.

    I was almost shocked. Dude was ready for real food.

    Although I think calling rice cereal real food is a bit of a stretch. More like, mushy-tastes-like-nothing-slop. Details.

    However, our real food issues are coming from Amy.

    She’ll have an apple in her hand and with her mouth full announce, ‘Still hungry!’

    She is permanently ‘still hungry’.

    It’s driving me mad. Mostly I ignore it. At least I will until the demands for food become so annoying I couldn’t ignore it from another country.

    There’s only so much you can do with carrots, apples and slices of capsicum.

    At dinner, she eats her meat of her own accord, then ignores her vegies. If I pick up her plate and feed her, she is more than willing to eat everything, but obviously having to feed herself is just too hard. We pick our battles and if she was starving hungry then of course she would eat everything, but she isn’t. Because she snacks all day. Constantly.

    Somehow, I think she’s gotten herself confused with ‘hungry’ and ‘bored and wanting instant gratification’.

    Sigh.

    It’s gotten so bad with the ‘still hungry!’ that the other night? I went in before bed to make sure she was snuggled. She woke up a little, looked at me sleepily and announced ‘Mummy, Amy is still hungry.’ She wasn’t even awake properly!

    It’s a phase and it will pass. The good news though? She will eat bowlfuls of porridge. She loves the stuff. (With real oats, not the instant kind)

    Other Amy-isms lately:

    Amy woke up at 6.30am. She’s been waking earlier and earlier lately.

    ‘Amy, it’s still dark. Go back to bed.’

    ‘But Mummy, Amy is already awake!’

    Why so you are.

    **

    ‘Amy, would you like to give Nanny a hug?’

    ‘No.’

    Then she ran away. Obviously Nanny had had enough hugs.

    **

    ‘Mummy!’

    ‘What?’

    ‘Isaac is scary!’

    ‘Isaac isn’t scary.’

    ‘Yes! Isaac is a scary monster. Arghhhhh! Amy hide.’

    **